Can humans get H5N1 infection by consuming raw milk?

Sub: Science and tech

Sec: Health

Context:

The Atlanta-based CDC has advised people to desist from consuming uncooked dairy food products such as raw, unpasteurised milk, or raw cheeses from animals with suspected or confirmed H5N1 bird flu virus infection.

More on news:

No case of H5N1 infection in humans has been reported after consuming raw milk.
Scientists believed that the virus can be transmitted via an infected cow’s milk that has not been pasteurized.

Human Case:

The lone reported human case in the current outbreak in cattle spread across 49 herds in nine States in the U.S. has been a dairy farm worker who had direct exposure to cows and developed conjunctivitis.
There are very few human cases reported so far and almost all of those were in farm workers who had come in close contact with infected animals.
The likely route of transmission was airborne.

Do humans get H5N1 infection by consuming raw milk?

Raw milk from H5N1 infected cows may not cause illness in humans as the route of introduction of the virus is oral rather than nasopharyngeal.
Possibility of a human being catching H5N1 infection from infected raw milk is very low.
There has been no documented evidence of H5N1 transmission from animals to humans via the oral route,till now.
Almost all human influenza virus infections are primarily respiratory infections unlike in some other mammals where gut infections are reported.
Based on that it can be stated that consumption of heavily infected H5N1 containing raw milk is unlikely to cause illness in human beings.

Transmission in cats and birds:

There are many reports of cats being infected with H5N1 in the current outbreak in the U.S.
Domestic cats fed with raw, unpasteurised colostrum and milk from affected cows developed fatal systemic influenza infection, thus demonstrating the oral route of transmission in cats.
Some birds (poultry) as well as cats do show susceptibility to influenza virus infections via oral route. Humans have not been infected by faeco-oral route even if the virus is shed by humans in the excreta.

What is A(H5N1)?

H5N1 is one of several influenza viruses that causes a highly infectious respiratory disease in birds called avian influenza (or bird flu).
Infections in mammals, including humans, have also been documented.
In 1996, highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 virus was first identified in domestic waterfowl in Southern China.
India experienced the first Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (H5N1) outbreak in the State of Maharashtra and Gujarat on 18th February, 2015.